A lot of phones are lost or stolen and these phones contain an increasing amount of private, perhaps sensitive, information. It would be useful if a lost or stolen phone could be completely locked as soon as possible after it is lost by the use of a friend's phone or a web site. The phone lock should be possible to reverse if it is found, so that it immediately can be used with its original information.
There are four actions a user can perform today related to phone theft.
One is to contact the operator and invalidate the IMEI number. After contacting the operator, it typically takes a few days before the phone is invalidated in the network.
The second action is to invalidate the SIM card itself in the network This invalidation will in most cases take only a few minutes to implement in the network.
The third action, which is of a preventive nature, is to use the phone locking mechanism usually implemented in mobile phones, in which case the user must either enter a code at each power on or the phone is automatically locked when used with another SIM card.
The fourth action is to enable the SIM card's PIN code, in which case the phone will be inaccessible while using the locked SIM card unless the correct PIN code is entered. If both phone lock and SIM card PIN is active the user must enter two separate codes at each start-up.
However, invalidating the IMEI does not necessarily prevent access to the phone itself, nor does the SIM card invalidation. Enabling phone lock at each start-up will prevent unauthorised access to data, but locking the phone to one specific SIM card only does not prevent somebody to access the content of the phone, as long as the original SIM card is used. Enabling the SIM card's PIN code will only have an effect after the phone have been powered off and then on again.
The only way to achieve protection of the phone's content and unauthorised use of the SIM card using currently available solutions is to use the phone locking feature described above, in combination with enabling the SIM PIN code. This solution is not optimal since it requires the user to always enter the PIN code every time the phone is powered on, and perhaps even the phone lock code, and the protection is not activated unless the phone first is powered off.
The present invention solves this problem by introducing a remote lock and control function into the phone. Then a user that looses his phone can send a special message, typically an SMS, to his lost phone that will lock the phone.